The IEEE standard “IEEE 1394-2000 Standard For A High Performance Serial Bus,” Draft ratified in 2000, is an international standard for implementing an inexpensive high-speed serial bus architecture which supports both asynchronous and isochronous format data transfers. Isochronous data transfers are real-time transfers which take place such that the time intervals between significant instances have the same duration at both the transmitting and receiving applications. Each packet of data transferred isochronously is transferred in its own time period. An example of an ideal application for the transfer of data isochronously would be from a video recorder to a television set. The video recorder records images and sounds and saves the data in discrete chunks or packets. The video recorder then transfers each packet, representing the image and sound recorded over a limited time period, during that time period, for display by the television set. The IEEE 1394-2000 serial bus architecture provides multiple channels for isochronous data transfer between applications. A six bit channel number is broadcast with the data to ensure reception by the appropriate application. This allows multiple applications to simultaneously transmit isochronous data across the bus structure. Asynchronous transfers are traditional data transfer operations which take place as soon as possible and transfer an amount of data from a source to a destination.
The IEEE 1394-2000 standard provides a high-speed serial bus for interconnecting digital devices thereby providing a universal I/O connection. The IEEE 1394-2000 standard defines a digital interface for the applications thereby eliminating the need for an application to convert digital data to analog data before it is transmitted across the bus. Correspondingly, a receiving application will receive digital data from the bus, not analog data, and will therefore not be required to convert analog data to digital data. The cable required by the IEEE 1394-2000 standard is very thin in size compared to other bulkier cables used to connect such devices. Devices can be added and removed from an IEEE 1394-2000 bus while the bus is active. If a device is so added or removed the bus will then automatically reconfigure itself for transmitting data between the then existing nodes. A node is considered a logical entity with a unique address on the bus structure. Each node provides a configuration ROM, a standardized set of control registers and its own address space. Because of these advantages the IEEE 1394-2000 standard provides for a unique networking structure that is capable of incorporating audio/video devices, media play/record devices, computing devices and display devices.
The IEEE 1394-2000 standard defines a protocol as illustrated in FIG. 1. This protocol includes a serial bus management block 10 coupled to a transaction layer 12, a link layer 14 and a physical layer 16. The physical layer 16 provides the electrical and mechanical connection between a device or application and the IEEE 1394-2000 cable. The physical layer 16 also provides arbitration to ensure that all devices coupled to the IEEE 1394-2000 bus have access to the bus as well as actual data transmission and reception. The link layer 14 provides data packet delivery service for both asynchronous and isochronous data packet transport. This supports both asynchronous data transport, using an acknowledgement protocol, and isochronous data transport, providing real-time guaranteed bandwidth protocol for just-in-time data delivery. The transaction layer 12 supports the commands necessary to complete asynchronous data transfers, including read, write and lock. The transaction layer 12 also provides a path for isochronous management data to be transferred to the serial bus management block 10 via read operations with isochronous control compare-swap registers. The serial bus management block 10 contains an isochronous resource manager for managing isochronous data transfers. The serial bus management block 10 also provides overall configuration control of the serial bus in the form of optimizing arbitration timing, guarantee of adequate electrical power for all devices on the bus, assignment of the cycle master, assignment of isochronous channel and bandwidth resources and basic notification of errors.
A diverse range of products can be implemented with the ability to connect to an IEEE 1394-2000 serial bus network. These devices can have capabilities and functionality ranging from very simple to very complex. Specifically, a variety of audio/video devices, media play/record devices and computing/display devices are capable of being linked together over an IEEE 1394-2000 serial bus networking structure to support asynchronous and isochronous data transfers between the devices.
The IEEE 1394-2000 cable environment is a network of nodes connected by point-to-point links, including a port on each node's physical connection and the cable between them. The physical topology for the cable environment of an IEEE 1394-2000 serial bus is a non-cyclic network of multiple ports, with finite branches. The primary restriction on the cable environment is that nodes must be connected together without forming any closed loops.
The IEEE 1394-2000 cable connects ports together on different nodes. Each port includes terminators, transceivers and simple logic. A node can have multiple ports at its physical connection. The cable and ports act as bus repeaters between the nodes to simulate a single logical bus. Because each node must continuously repeat bus signals, a pair of power wires within the cable including a power wire VP and a ground wire VG, enable the physical layer of each node to remain operational even when the local power at the node is turned off. The pair of power wires is powered from local power of the active devices on the IEEE 1394-2000 serial bus. Accordingly, at least one of the active devices must be powered by local power. Together, the signals VG and VP form a power signal which is used by the nodes.
The cable physical connection at each node includes one or more ports, arbitration logic, a resynchronizer and an encoder. Each of the ports provide the cable media interface into which the cable connector is connected. The standard IEEE 1394-2000 cable connectors, used at both ends of the IEEE 1394-2000 cable provide six electrical contacts plus a shield. The six electrical contacts represent two contacts for each of the differential signals TPA and TPB, and a single contact each for the power signal VP and the ground signal VG. The arbitration logic provides access to the bus for the node. The resynchronizer takes received data-strobe encoded data bits and generates data bits synchronized to a local clock for use by the applications within the node. The encoder takes either data being transmitted by the node or data received by the resynchronizer, which is addressed to another node, and encodes it in data-strobe format for transmission across the IEEE 1394-2000 serial bus. Using these components, the cable physical connection translates the point-to-point topology of the cable environment into a virtual broadcast bus, which is expected by higher layers of the system. This is accomplished by taking all data received on one port of the physical connection, resynchronizing the data to a local clock and repeating the data out of all of the other ports from the physical connection.
There are network configurations and protocols other than IEEE 1394-2000 which are used to connect devices together. One such configuration and protocol is a local area network (LAN) operating according to Ethernet standards, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.3 standard. Within a LAN, a multi-port router allows simultaneous communication between nodes of the LAN by segmenting the LAN into multiple network segments, each segment having a corresponding transmission medium. When a node (source node) sends data to another node (destination node) located on its same segment of the LAN (intra-segment communication), the data is communicated directly between the nodes without intervention by the multi-port router and is known as an intra-segment packet. Therefore, when the multi-port router receives an intra-segment packet, the multi-port router does not bridge the packet (the packet is filtered). When a node (source node) sends a data packet to another node (destination node) located on a different segment (inter-segment communication), the multi-port router appropriately forwards the data packet to the destination node.
Ethernet technology currently appears to be the leading technology for implementing home networks. The Ethernet standards support asynchronous data transfers which take place as soon as possible, based on a contention mechanism, and transfer an amount of data from a source node to a destination node. However, the Ethernet standards do not support isochronous data transfers or guaranteed bandwidth delivery.